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Friar_David_O.Carm
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You must show bishops who refused to sign on to the councils for this to be true.
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Phillip_Rolfes
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Thank you, Michael. I had not thought of it from this perspective before.Hi Phillip!Frankly, the “Gallican” position is more correct.
For Orthodox, dogmatic issues were worked out in council (which looks for all practical purposes very like multiple synods meeting simultaneously). After which the Council isn’t finally accepted until some time has passed and it can be acclaimed at a later gathering. Sometimes the church has had to reverse itself, the representatives who met were clearly not speaking with the Holy Spirit, because the church as a whole rejected the council. That is the historical precedent and that is how we see the infallibility of the church at work.
It’s a messy business, I know.
Ultimately, the Body of Christ is a confederation of local churches all with Apostolic roots, and it has to be this way. The local churches have to agree after the ink has been set to parchment. They are the constituent parts of the whole Body of Christ, and they have to be respected.
The notion that the bishop of Rome will consult the other bishops until he is satisfied and then pull out a declaration of his own composition is still making him the sole judge of the matter. He acts when he wills to act, on issues he personally deigns important according to his own standards and according to his own schedule with his own aides. He then presents something to the world as a fait accompli, bypassing any council if he should so wish.
This is not a surprise to anyone today, it is precisely this power he claims for himself.
However there is no historical precedent for it. It was done for the first time in 1854AD, by Pope Pius IX, and some years later sought to legitimize this act after the fact by having a Council ratify the new process. It is ironic that he had to call a council to legitimize his novel bypassing of council.
Apparently, the Gallican churchmen could see that this was brewing up into a foul business, and they had to be silenced.
I am not a student of the movement, but from what has been described the condemnation of Gallicanism seems to have been just one last nail in the coffin of ye olde Orthodoxy in the west.
Your friend,
Michael
Precisely.
Could you recommend some Orthodox reading sources on this issue? I would be most interested in expanding my limited horizons. 
One problem that I see with the whole Papal infallibility issue is that no one really seems to know when the Pope is making an infallible statement. There have been times, from what I understand, when the Popes have claimed to be making infallible statements, but the statements were later rejected. The defense usually goes something along the lines of “not all the criteria for an infallible statement were met.”
Personally I think the whole issue is silly, and it has no bearing one way or the other on my life in the Church; it had no bearing on me when I was a Roman Catholic, and it continues to have no bearing on me as a Melkite. I believe that when we are united with God in the Age to Come we will find that the arguments over Papal infallibility were for nothing. It is telling, I think, that no Pope has wasted any breath or stained any vocal chords over the issue since “Pio No No”.
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dvdjs
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Nope. Otherwise the Council of Chalcedon could not be considered ecumenical, nor Ephesus I.
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RuthByzCat3
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First, I fount on East2West.org that the only required beliefs about Purgatory are:
- There is a state (or something thereabout) which purifies those with sin still on them (something like that, I’m doing this from memory).
- Prayer for the souls in this “state” is good.
-Note the abscence of fire or any other common purgatorial images.
- In the funeral troparia, the correct translation of the verb translated “brought” in the phrase “With the souls of the just brought to perfection” is actually “being brought.” This is a present participle, indicating ongoing action.
- The Orthodox Churches pray for the dead (as mentioned above, as well as in Akathists for departed souls, etc.)
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Little_Boy_Lost
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Some Church Fathers, such as St. Cyprian and St. Augustine of Hippo, seemed to believe in a purification after death. However, the character of this purification is never clarified, and especially (as St. Mark of Ephesus underlined at the Council of Florence) it seems there is no true distinction between heaven, hell and the so-called purgatory: all souls partake differently in the same mystical fire (which, according to St. Isaac of Syria, is God’s Love) but because of their spiritual change they are bound to different reactions: bliss for those who are in communion with him; purification for those in the process of being deified; and remorse for those who hated God during their earthly lives. Because of this confusion and inability of the human language to understand these realities, **the Church refrains from theological speculation. Instead, she affirms the unbroken Tradition of prayers for the dead, the certainty of eternal life, the rejection of reincarnation, and the communion of the Saints (those living and those who have fallen asleep in the Lord) in the same Body of Christ which is the Church. **Private speculation is thus still possible as it was in the time of the Church Fathers.
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Friar_David_O.Carm
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Not only a rejection of the term but a rejection of the Western theological baggage that goes along with it, such as fire and the other common purgatorial images.
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josephdaniel29
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And…a rejection of the need to dogmatize every teeny tiny little aspect of the faith.
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sidbrown
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Pope Clement VI, 1351 in a letter to the Armenians mentions torture by fire and similarly does St. Thomas:
ope Clement VI, 1351 in a letter to the Armenians“We ask if you have believed and now believe that there is a Purgatory to which depart the souls of those dying in grace who have not yet made complete satisfaction for their sins. Also, if you have believed and now believe that **they will be tortured by fire for a time **and that as soon as they are cleansed, even before the day of judgment, they may come to the true and eternal beatitude which consists in the vision of God face to face and in love.”
St. Thomas:
“In Purgatory there will be a twofold pain; one will be the pain of loss, namely the delay of the divine vision, and the pain of sense, namely punishment by corporeal fire. With regard to both the least pain of Purgatory surpasses the greatest pain of this life. For the more a thing is desired the more painful is its absence. And since after this life the holy souls desire the Sovereign Good with the most intense longing - both because their longing is not held back by the weight of the body, and because, had there been no obstacle, they would already have gained the goal of enjoying the Sovereign Good - it follows that they grieve exceedingly for their delay. Again, since pain is not hurt, but the sense of hurt, the more sensitive a thing is, the greater the pain caused by that which hurts it: wherefore hurts inflicted on the more sensible parts cause the greatest pain. And, because all bodily sensation is from the soul, it follows of necessity that the soul feels the greatest pain when a hurt is inflicted on the soul itself. That the soul suffers pain from the bodily fire is at present taken for granted… Therefore it follows that the pain of Purgatory, both of loss and of sense, surpasses all the pains of this life.” (St. Thomas Aquinas).
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ciero
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Boy I’m sure glad we Byzantines don’t go in for all that stuff.Pope Clement VI, 1351 in a letter to the Armenians mentions torture by fire and similarly does St. Thomas:
“We ask if you have believed and now believe that there is a Purgatory to which depart the souls of those dying in grace who have not yet made complete satisfaction for their sins. Also, if you have believed and now believe that **they will be tortured by fire for a time **and that as soon as they are cleansed, even before the day of judgment, they may come to the true and eternal beatitude which consists in the vision of God face to face and in love.”
St. Thomas:
“In Purgatory there will be a twofold pain; one will be the pain of loss, namely the delay of the divine vision, and the pain of sense, namely punishment by corporeal fire. With regard to both the least pain of Purgatory surpasses the greatest pain of this life. For the more a thing is desired the more painful is its absence. And since after this life the holy souls desire the Sovereign Good with the most intense longing - both because their longing is not held back by the weight of the body, and because, had there been no obstacle, they would already have gained the goal of enjoying the Sovereign Good - it follows that they grieve exceedingly for their delay. Again, since pain is not hurt, but the sense of hurt, the more sensitive a thing is, the greater the pain caused by that which hurts it: wherefore hurts inflicted on the more sensible parts cause the greatest pain. And, because all bodily sensation is from the soul, it follows of necessity that the soul feels the greatest pain when a hurt is inflicted on the soul itself. That the soul suffers pain from the bodily fire is at present taken for granted… Therefore it follows that the pain of Purgatory, both of loss and of sense, surpasses all the pains of this life.” (St. Thomas Aquinas).
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Friar_David_O.Carm
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But letters from a Pope and Aquinas do not make it dogma. It is just theological opinion.Boy I’m sure glad we Byzantines don’t go in for all that stuff.
Not only that but Article 1 and 5 of the Union of Brest should make sidbrown quiet down.
1. Since there is a quarrel between the Romans and Greeks about the procession of the Holy Spirit, which greatly impede unity really for no other reason than that we do not wish to understand one another - we ask that we should not be compelled to any other creed but that we should remain with that which was handed down to us in the Holy Scriptures, in the Gospel, and in the writings of the holy Greek Doctors, that is, that the Holy Spirit proceeds, not from two sources and not by a double procession, but from one origin, from the Father through the Son.
5. We shall not debate about purgatory, but we entrust ourselves to the teaching of the Holy Church.
As the Church has spoken on these matters I do not feel the need to discuss them any longer with you sidbrown.
If you have issues I suggest you contact the proper authority in the Church to discuss them.
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sidbrown
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Purgatory is a sound doctrine of the Catholic Church according to the Council of Trent:
The Council of Trent (Sess. XXV) defined:
“Whereas the Catholic Church, instructed by the Holy Ghost, has from the Sacred Scriptures and the ancient tradition of the Fathers taught in Councils and very recently in this Ecumenical synod (Sess. VI, cap. XXX; Sess. XXII cap.ii, iii) that there is a purgatory, and that the souls therein are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, but principally by the acceptable Sacrifice of the Altar; the Holy Synod enjoins on the Bishops that they diligently endeavor to have the sound doctrine of the Fathers in Councils regarding purgatory everywhere taught and preached, held and believed by the faithful”
According to the Catholic encyclopedia:“For unrepented venial faults for the payment of temporal punishment due to sin at time of death, the Church has always taught the doctrine of purgatory.”
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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ciero
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When are you going to get it Sid? Those Western local synods (Trent) have nothing to do with us Easterners…keep it in your own Latin Ghetto please.
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Friar_David_O.Carm
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And I never said otherwise.
We believe in a purgative process. We just do not use the imagery that the West uses when talking about it.
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sidbrown
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I go by what the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon has said on Purgatory and as well what the Catholic network EWTN has published on it: According to the Cardinal:
“We approve and recommend with all our heart the beautiful little book Read
Me or Rue It…Although small, it is destined to do great good among Catholics, many of
whom are incredibly ignorant of the great doctrine of Purgatory…It is our earnest desire that every Catholic should read this little book
and spread it about as widely as possible.”
ewtn.com/library/SPIRIT/READRUE.TXT
According to this book Read Me or Rue IT, by Fr. Paul O’Sullivan:
“The existence of Purgatory is so certain that no Catholic has ever
entertained a doubt of it. It was taught from the earliest days of the
Church and was accepted with undoubting faith wherever the Gospel was
preached.
The doctrine is revealed in Holy Scripture and has been handed down by
Tradition, taught by the infallible Church and believed by the millions and
millions of faithful of all times.”
“People do not realize what Purgatory is. They have no conception of its
dreadful pains, and they have no idea of the long years that souls are
detained in these awful fires.”
“WHAT IS PURGATORY?
It is a prison of fire in which nearly all [saved] souls are plunged after
death and in which they suffer the intensest pain.”
“St. Cyril of Alexandria does not hesitate to say that "it would be
preferable to suffer all the possible torments of Earth until the Judgment
day than to pass one day in Purgatory. "
Another great Saint says: "Our fire, in comparison with the fire of
Purgatory, is as a refreshing breeze. "”
“The more intense our fire is, the more speedily it destroys its victim,
who therefore ceases to suffer; whereas, the fire of Purgatory inflicts the
keenest, most violent pain, but never kills the soul nor lessens its
sensibility.”
“The fact remains always the
same – whether we believe it, or whether we do not – that the pains of
Purgatory are beyond everything we can imagine or conceive.”
See:
ewtn.com/library/SPIRIT/READRUE.TXT
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sidbrown
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Do all Eastern Christians accept this idea of a purgative process, or is there some discussion on what it entails? I have heard some Orthodox say flat out that there is no Purgatory. But on the other hand some of them have this concept of toll houses. I haven’t heard where any Eastern Catholic accepts the toll house theory.
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Friar_David_O.Carm
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Eastern Catholics should believe in a process of purgation. After all we do pray for the dead.
Some Orthodox also believe in this but it is not required of them as it is of Catholics.
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Aramis
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All byzantines should, but under the name theosis. There is much speculation about the details, but since it’s in the propers that theosis continues after death, by the prayers of the faithful and the Grace of God, there is little dissention from what actually constitutes the formal declaration, namely, purgatory is a place or state of continued purification and drawing closer to God following death.
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Alexander_Roman
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But the Roman Church did not require its “full” doctrine of purgatory to be accepted by the Greeks at Florence. Although Rome imposed the Latin theological term of “purgatory” on the Greeks, it did not require that they accept it in terms of a “purgatorial fire.”
And at Brest, the Ruthenian bishops there simply said, with respect to purgatory, that they would “entrust themselves to the teaching of the Church.” That was sufficiently ambiguous to satisfy both sides.
Trent defined purgatory, in its scholastic tradition, to counter the Protestant criticism of prayer for the dead.
The East has always prayed assiduously for the dead that their sins may be loosed and that they could be united fully with Christ in heaven. It has no need of anything further from the scholastic West on this score.
The Latin Church can certainly have its theological traditions and terminology - more power to it. But it shouldn’t feel the need to impose these on the East which has its own venerable and ancient traditions dating back to the Apostles.
Alex
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Alexander_Roman
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And given the dynamic nature of Eastern Eschatology, when we offer Divine Liturgies or “Masses” in honour of the Saints already in Heaven, this increases their glory. We will never be in a state, in this life or the next, when we won’t be growing closer to God and Christ in the Communion of the Saints!
Alex
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Little_Boy_Lost
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I personally like the idea of St. Isaac of Syria. Of God’s love being a mystical fire in our heart. And we all experience that differently depending on our disposition toward them. So through theosis, as we climb toward heaven and communion with Him in our afterlife, we experience his love differently. Many of us probably could not bear to see the Uncreated Light in all it’s glory, and so as part of our humility and contrition we would want to be made ready for the Bridegroom. This is purgatory. The making right, the humbling of our soul for closer communion with God.
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